Wild Harmonies: A Life of Music and Wolves

by Hélène Grimaud

An acclaimed French pianist describes her life-changing first encounter with a wolf hybrid in 1991, her efforts to protect the threatened wolf species, and her foundation of a wolf preserve on the grounds of her New York State home.

Genres: Music, Biography, Nonfiction, France, Memoir, Animals, Nature

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Noella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dit boek voldeed niet aan mijn verwachtingen. Het grootste deel gaat over de muzikale carrière van Grimaud, van haar jeugd af, tot het succes dat ze mede door haar eigenzinnigheid bereikt heeft. Ik begrijp wel dat het hier vooral gaat over de emotionaliteit die gepaard gaat met haar strijd om te worden wie ze geworden is, maar ik vind de verwachtingen die geschapen werden door de cover en door de tekst op de achterflap, niet tot zijn recht komen. Ik had verwacht dat een veel groter deel van haar boek gewijd zou zijn aan haar relaties met de wolven, maar dat komt slechts helemaal op het einde aan bod. Het boek is wel doorspekt met mythologische en wetenschappelijke weetjes over wolven.
Het boek leest zeer vlot, daarom heb ik het uitgelezen.

[Evan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Helene Grimaud is a French classical pianist and wolf advocate and also a bit of an eccentric mystery woman. Because of that, the press and the public have had a hard time getting a handle on her. This book, written floridly and crammed with poetical allusion, is almost a love letter to herself, and it provides ample insight into Grimaud's drives and passions and hatreds. It is also full of contradictions, and even though it seems honest for the most part it also comes off at times as disingenuous. It seems, to some degree, the mystery of Grimaud is preserved.

The book juggles back and forth between chapters devoted to Grimaud's rise as a musical artist and those devoted to historical wolf lore and related mythology. Music and wolves are her two loves, and so these threads run parallel thoughout the book. In a certain sense, Grimaud fancies herself as one who runs with the wolves, someone who is, in a sense a wild rebel, or some such. Oddly, though, the wolves' sense of social order and responsibility is actually greater than Grimaud's herself -- being the rather me-centered, arrogant iconoclast that she is, as confirmed by this book. In fact, when I started reading it, I rather liked and admired her -- as she described a childhood filled with an outsider's loneliness. But as it proceeded into her adulthood, and that loneliness morphed into a kind of fierce exceptionalism and snobbishness, I began to dislike her. But I can't begrudge this of the author because I think she is fairly honest and up front about it, and -- as I'm sure she would say herself -- she doesn't really care about other people's opinions of her.

The first part of the book, I thought was best, when she describes her youth, capturing vividly and painstakingly the inner feelings and discoveries of a loner's and outsider's childhood. It is a childhood defined by struggles with self-inflicted physical pain, OCD and synesthesia as well as by an enthusiastic wide-eyed embrace of those things.

The book is amazingly written; each sentence sings like a musical line, albeit in the vein of the romantic classical repetoire she prefers. At times, one feels that the book is overwritten, and you just want her to get on with the narrative. I have to admit all the wolf stuff was a bit too much for me; the insight into musical matters I found much more interesting. I was disappointed in Grimaud's unwillingness to be more forthcoming about her romantic relations; she goes on and on vaguely about her first and lends no real detail and mentions one with a musician named Jeff without saying what attracted the two to one another. It's not a kiss-and-tell book, that's for certain.

Grimaud makes contradictory statements about fans, seeming to wave them off yet claiming that when she plays she plays for them; dismisses her beauty yet obviously plays it to her advantage; and engages in willful behaviors that seem childish and immature, including some inexcusable dissings of artists including Leon Fleischer and Daniel Barenboim.

But the book is marvelously written and filled with incident interesting to those who, like me, want to know about the behind-the-scenes life of a classical musical artist.

Don't you just love it when someone is physically beautiful, musically gifted and can write better than most writers? The universe does dole out its goodies unfairly. Despite that envy, my critical acumen knows a well-written autobiography when I see it, and this is one of those.

[Horst Walther · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hélène Grimaud – Wild Harmonies
I asked myself the question: what could I write about this book? If it is a good or a bad book? If the author should have written it differently? If it hits the point (well, which one?) Or if it pretty much off the mark?
That’s obviously nonsense, of course. There is no objective measure. It's all a matter of personal attitude, of the fit of minds.
As I was driven by curiosity throughout my entire life (well, so far), when coming to know about Hélène Grimaud and her Wolf’s encounter first, it struck me. I decided to find out why – to understand.
I chose to go for a used book- low risk, low profile.
When it arrived after being more or less gently rocked by the waves of the Atlantic Ocean for some weeks I added it to my long list of books to be read.
Finally it was the cover picture – well, and the fact, that the voluminous reading about corporate governance, which I was on, had exhausted me quite a bit - which let me bypass the entire queue.
I started with low expectations with only a few of Hélèn’s Chopin & Beethoven interpretations in my ears. But page by page I came to speed. After having read some fifty pages I began to breathlessly devour chapter by chapter during my few moments of spare time.
The relentless frankness of this remarkable book gives me the impression – or illusion – to gain some understanding of this truly extraordinary person. I was even able to detect some common traits in our two completely different lives.
Should I recommend it? Well I don’t know. I do rate it with the highest scores – but that’s just for me.
During reading I occasionally asked myself if the first and original owner of this book might have shared my excitement. But why then did he / she give it away? Anyway the book didn’t disclose this second order secret.
It looks like if I am shying away from coming up with a clear answer. Ok then, recommended to all who dare to plunge into the adventure to trace a truly exceptional personality. All others better stay away.

[... · Rating 4 out of 5]

Helene Grimaud is a classical pianist and a co-founder of the Wolf Conservation Center in New York. In her autobiography, her childhood and early career memories are interspersed with musings about wolves.



It's a typical memoir, if a little scattered, that reads particularly well. Helene Grimaud does overdo it, but I think that's just her personality shining through, the zeal. I read it almost like a novel, and it reminded me of Bird Cottage.

It was mostly about music, which I know next to nothing about. The wolf parts of the chapters were not very factual at times, like the story of Amala and Kamala; then again, Grimaud wrote more about the wolf symbolism than its biology. The founding of the Wolf Conservation Center in 1999 is covered in the very last chapter, and very briefly. This is probably one of my main problems with the book: the cover and the blurb promise a wolf story here, but it remains untold. She didn't mention the other WCC co-founder, or where the wolves that live there came from, what was it that they did, specifically, other than kid trips. Right now it's an organization that everyone recognizes, and so I wanted to learn a bit more about its beginnings. But Grimaud didn't provide any such info in her memoir, which was disappointing, to say the least.

Still, it was an engaging read that held my interest despite my lack of music knowledge.

[Bobparr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro a tratti entusiasmante, giocato sull'equilibrio tra autobiografia di adolescente inquieta e concertista apprezzata, e continue informazioni e sviluppi sul mondo dei lupi e degli animali in genere. Ci sono parole bellissime sulla musica, sugli esecutori, sui compositori. Ci sono ricordi di una persona talentuosa, geniale e difficile.
Non sento arroganza, ma solo furia di vivere tra fatiche, insuccessi e lavoro, ed i suoi contrari.
Chissa', forse la Grimaud ha trovato davvero quel centro di salute essenziale che va citando, e qui ce ne racconta un pezzo.

[Christina Pan · Rating 5 out of 5]

After seeing one of Grimaud's concerts, everything about this book makes sense.
The way she thinks and feels and affects others around her, including me when I saw her perform, is explained in compulsive detail here.
I'm rarely astonished by music anymore and I struggle to pay attention all the time. But when she was playing Brahms in Washington last month, I was moved. It takes a lot of the right circumstances for me to cry when encountering something that doesn't directly relate to me so I was astonished by both her playing and my reaction. It was a silly involuntary single tear moment but I was surprised I felt that moved by a solo piano piece. She was also singing / moaning / gesturing ? while playing. Almost like a wolf. And I think this novel answers a lot about why I was so affected, I was so curious as to what about her got to me even before I knew her thought process. She is a pretty astonishing artist and pianist and magnetic writer and just a fascinating person.
This stubbornness of hers - refusing to play saint saens, refusing to rehearse, being "un" (controllable, disciplined, etc) is very comforting to me as a person who has lived with these same emotions.
And objectively - the casualness and poeticism of how she writes about the encounters with people in the world. befriending an ex-veteran with Avtomat Kalashnikova ak47s and wolves in his backyards and thousands of dollars in stereo setups. The gay couple who look like greek statues on the lower east side who took her in and she still visits them in nyc. gidon kremer and argerich and richter and gould and other such giants making appearances but not reverent appearances, which i appreciate, in here.
Here are some notable parts of the novel:

I knew I was in another kind of territory, one of those spacesfrom which one could soar, and nothing gave me greater pleasurethan being there. I ran completely joyful, completely exuberant,through this land of horizons where everything is excessive: thesun too cruel, the wind too strong, the waters too unpredictable.I repeated the words of Paul Cezanne: ''No one will get theirhooks into me." Certainly, the Camargue taught me as much, andsometimes I stopped leaping and running, stopped rolling in thetall grass and made myself walk on tiptoe so as not to disturb anything. I was a guest, merely tolerated, and I was reminded of thisby my sunburned shoulders and my mosquito bites; at the sametime, I was horse, wind, raging tide, soft hyacinth. I rolled in thewaves. Finally at peace with my body, I was neither girl nor boy. I was simply, completely, and marvelously alive.
  I had my favorites and my waiting lists. They were summoned to speak with me. I could start two booksat the same time: I would pluck one like a daisy, page after page, or sample it like a petit-four. The other I would devour at once, greedily, without a crumb of displeasure

As I look back, I understand the privilege of those moments whenI could practically feel my bones growing. In the slowness of thedream and the thickness of the silence, one could measure thedensit)^ of the time that flowed past. The hours of boredom ofchildhood are gardens of time, tilled with frustrations, workedover with slow eternities, haunted by far-off futures ... I wandered among them, a prisoner of my room and of winter Wednesdays. There I hatched desires and images. I defined myself, learnedmyself by heart, and, above all, I drew up endless escape plans 
Its strange—when someone asks if I was a happy child, I automatically answer yes. But if I really think about the question, if I plungeback into the memory of who I was then, the answer is a resounding no. Objectively, I had every reason to be happy. But I was suffocating. Not always, and not all the time. To put it simply, my earthlyenvelope constricted me, the awareness of my envelope, of this methat limited me, and from which I wished to escape. One day, seatedat my school desk, concentrating on writing left-handed—whichmade my neighbor squint—the letters that I was learning, all atonce I understood, or rather, all at once I experienced this "me,''my me that concentrated all my energy within the limits of mybody, even as I longed to burst out of it. I remember feeling thepressure of the entire universe on my skin. It was an incredible,dazzling, overwhelming moment, an experience of my presence inthe world that I would remember several seasons later when, forthe first time, I encountered the piano—but with the exact opposite sensation 
Baudelaire wrote, ''Love greatly resembles an application of torture or a surgical operation/' At the time I was growing up, I knew nothing of this aphorism, but I lived it. I loved life and the world passionately. I wanted to feel them in my skin as deeply as possible. I experienced this for the first time in Corsica with that little surgical operation, when the doctor sewed up my heel that hadbeen cut by a bottle shard. That delicious pain had made me exist
more than anything else in the world, had fit me into a time and a place—it had given me myself I had gained access to life by giving over my entire being to that injury.     
  I blew on my skin to intensify the pain. I rememberthinking that life itself was rubbing against me, and that I couldthus perceive it with a clarity that was particularly sharp, elemental,and significant
Music suited me, because, I think, that m order to be a musician,one has to be compulsive. There is an innate compulsion, as inevery other activity that requires a search for perfection. I thinkthat all children who play an instrument or practice a sport havethis in them. From the outset, one needs to have a certain way ofthinking that is practically pathological, and at the same time a certain exuberance, an expressive strength of communication.--  The clarity of nature, and that of music,both of which can be understood only by allowing them to develop internally in their wholeness
I attempted several times, as a sort ofmental game, to put my willpower to the test, to exercise the control of my mind over my urges. Each time I lost. Despite everything, I played with passion; I loved it. I threw myself into scores,devouring them like books, although the contact with music wasmore physical. Sometimes in my imagination, without even approaching the instrument, I would know what touch, what pressureon the keyboard was needed to bring forth the exact right sound. I retained this power, and I used it particularly for Brahms s FirstConcerto and for Beethoven s Fourth, and the fugue in Opus 1 10
Like a woman's perfume, music is thus powerfully suggestive
and even bewitching: its perfume is the magical outpouring of its being. The female musician becomes in a certain way a siren re- born, the witch eternally burned at the stake who has regained her
power: the power to charm. Except that the truly masculine manwill never surrender—science, technology, and reason are there to
protect him from false temptations. Thus, when a woman plays or composes, her music is no longer the sweetness that soothes. It is not Orpheus and his lyre, but the sirens and their voices, a trap
that captivates in order to capture. Its all there, in these two opposing visions that have prevailed since antiquity. On the onehand, the bewitching sirens, evil creatures bent on the destruction
of all those who listen to them, and on the other, the divine Orpheus, radiant, transcendent—neither bewitching nor evil, but
charming and redeeming.
  Adults, who watched their wordsand how they spoke, but who forgot to silence their hands. Thus,left to their own devices, they fidgeted and tensed, gripped thesleeve of a pullover (shyness?) or a handkerchief (a confessed, halfpardoned sin?) or clung to each other like two orphans. Stiff index finger or closed fist (politician), twisting a strand ofhair (ingenuous?), cupped around a face (seduction), fingersspread across the lips (incredulity), thumb sucked like a baby—all of these hands spoke volumes, like Rembrandt s hands must havespoken when they held a brush, or those of Matthew writing thegospel dictated by the angeL Oh, hands! Artists breathe in theworld through their palms—Fm sure of it
  I knew that their days were like oranges—perfectly round, tightly wrapped, cut into evenslices, every day identical to the previous one and the one that followed. For me in Paris, it was figs today, cherries tomorrow, as I pleased. The days were like long stretches of shoreline, indistinctof course, but their very openness instilled in me the slight,oblique fear that the unknown can produce—the experience of a new kind of vertigo, but a horizontal one.
   I particularly respect Cortot as a musician: I have always admired his sense of invention, of musicality, and, in a way, his lackof perfection—like a loose tie around a dandy s neck
  *The way Glenn Gould had of playing in the present momentgives off a lasting luminosity that brings to one s lips well-wornwords like 'innocence' and 'angel/ '' wrote Michel Schneider. Butwhich angel does he mean? Nuriel, the angel of fire? Taharial, the angel of purity? Padael, the angel of mercy? Raziel, the angel of mystery, the supreme envoy of Wisdom? Or Ashriel, the angel ofdeath, the ultimate messenger, whose beauty is mingled withdread?
  I remembered the emotionthat had shot through me like lightning when I had heard the Second Concerto of Rachmaninoff for the first time. From the first measures, the notes unfurl, relentlessly stirring one s soul. I hadbeen dumbstruck by the scope, the incredible power with whichthis piece embodied the world of Dostoyevsky—a world intowhich I plunged each evening, in the rooms my parents rented forme with various host families; a world that, page after page, magically erased the houses, streets, suburbs, the miseries, and thelies. ... I was immediately haunted by one obsession: one day I would play this concerto. One day I would penetrate its depths.
  L I knewnothing, but I already knew everything. I knew it from devouringthe works of Dostoyevsky, from absorbing them into myself to thepoint where every word became a note of music, then a concerto,then a symphony in my soul, until—when I heard them for thefirst time—these works were given names and were revealed to me:Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, and Stravinsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Prokofiev, and all of Shostakovich. I am sure, dear reader, that you alsohave had the experience of receiving, when you are reading, a sen- tence that seems as if it was written just for you.*lf my life had ended at that instant, I would have died joyfully,'' exclaimed Dostoyevsky.
  They were very giving,and I found in them that generosity of nature and grandeur ofspirit that I had dreamed of for so long.
  There is and can only be an encounter with the existence of music that is played. ''Somewhere in the unfinished.''
  Music is an extension of silence,which precedes it, and which resounds at the heart of a piece. It is the door to an Elsewhere of speech, that which speech cannotsay—and which silence can say, by quieting it. Music without si- lence? I call that noise. On the other hand, Tm sorry to admit, I am not wise enough to keep silent, even if I know its value
Since they have no traditions (even though they
have a particular way of life), Americans are not snobbish. And,
paradoxically, although they are capable of marveling at everything, they are never astonished.
  Nothing prepares you for New York as a whole, or for theBronx, or Harlem, or Manhattan, or Staten Island, not even forTimes Square: nothing and no one can prepare you for the shock ofthis city, our world s true center of gravity. 
  . I have a theory:Whoever can do the most can also do the least.
  I prefer the second hypothesis: IVe played Brahms andBeethoven so much that I feel as though I know them intimately,as if they were with me, as if they were prompting me. There is asforzando passage in The Tempest: at that point, I can't get it out ofmy head that Beethoven makes a movement with his elbow, that hemust have made such a movement, and that he will continue to doso for eternity. For me, the image of Beethoven is that of a snorting horse shaking its head—even if that means nothing to otherpeople. As for Brahms, for some strange reason, I see him leaningslightly forward, but I don t know if this leaning is due to anticipation, contemplation, or perplexity. Each time this is a physicalimage. In addition, when I step outside myself and watch myselfas Tm playing, sometimes I see a light come down that envelopsthe entire piano. I know that they are that light. At that instant, I know that I am there to receive this heavenly song and, inasmuchas I am its vehicle, to conduct this gentle lightning bolt of lovethrough the core of the tree to the center of the earth, the heartof the earth, this throbbing star
  From the very first measures, I felt a warm liquid dampeningmy hands and the keyboard—my tears.I believe that the entire audience was crying as well.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

i found this book incredibly inspiring. i loved it mostly for the insight it gave on grimaud's life, her intense focus and unique perspective of the world through the rich lens of music and literature. i found the format of the book a bit odd, as it was constantly jumping between recollections of her memories and seemingly disjointed anecdotes of wolf-centric history and mythology - the transitions there could probably have been smoother. in fact at some points it felt like it was two different books randomly spliced together. still, for an avid classical music lover, this was a fascinating read by a great pianist.

[Chieh-An Yu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant book! For those who wants to know the life of a music prodigy, the struggling for a musician, and who enjoy the beauty of French literature.

[Domary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Una bella sorpresa, una bella scrittura, un'autobiografia con una storia insolita, particolare, divisa tra musica e lupi.
Da bambina in-trattabile e in-disciplinata, ... e man mano mantenendo un carattere sempre esuberante, forte, determinato, arriverà a raggiungere le sue mete, realizzare i suoi sogni, senza mai abbassare l'assicella dei suoi propositi.
Può risultare superba, sfrontata, piena di sè, egocentrica ma è solo l'amore per se stessa.
Io l'avrei intitolato "divagazioni selvagge", ogni tanto divaga su tematiche varie, si sofferma su piccole "lezioncine".
"La vita si strofinava su di me come un gatto sul fondo dei calzoni. Ero io a fare le fusa."
"Mi hai fatto capire che la vera vita non è in ciò che viene a noi, ma in ciò che viene da noi. Io volevo essere. Amare è essere. E' creare la propria vita, assai più che riceverla."
"... passione è gettarsi a corpo morto in quel che si fa, anima e corpo, senza esitazione, senza inibizioni ...
Talvolta si sbaglia, tanto meglio, gli errori rendono interessante la vita e feriscono solo chi li commette."
"... l'uomo deve trovare il suo elemento, il quinto elemento ... l'arte, senza la quale siamo errabondi, orfani e infelici per la vita, senza la quale ci separiamo dalla natura e dal cosmo perchè sordi, ciechi, indifferenti, insensibili , ...

[Stefano Ottolenghi · Rating 4 out of 5]

"A poco a poco, ho raggiunto quest'armonia interiore, accettando le mie contraddizioni, comprendendo che certi esseri non sono una cosa sola ma un puzzle di aspirazioni contrastanti, e che è suicida, menomante, rinnegare qualcosa di sè per adeguarsi a una norma imposta da un modello.
... Ogni essere ha in sè il mistero delle proprie contraddizioni, delle proprie lotte interiori. Noi tutti siamo l'incarnazione di un mistero."

"Cosa vorrei trasmettere ai bambini? Come il lupo possiede la terra e il pesce l'oceano, l'uccello il cielo e gli dèi il fuoco, così l'uomo deve trovare il suo elemento, il quinto elemento, il solo da cui non sarà mai escluso. Questo elemento è l'arte, senza la quale siamo errabondi, orfani e infelici per la vita; senza la quale ci separiamo dalla natura e dal cosmo perchè sordi, ciechi, indifferenti, insensibili."

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un portrait intime où Grimaud raconte son enfance et son parcours de pianiste. Possédant un esprit libre et sauvage dévoué entièrement à la musique, cet artiste avoue qu'elle préfère la solitude ainsi que la compagnie des chiens. Malgré son talent prodigieux, l'auteur raconte ses échecs dans un monde compétitif où il faut respecter la tradition et faire preuve de docilité. Elle réussit à se frayer un chemin tout en restant fidèle à ses passions jusqu'à ce que l'ennui et l'angoisse commencent à s'installer. C'est là qu'elle rencontre Alawa, une louve adoptée par un vétéran de la guerre du Vietnam.

[M. Sarki · Rating 5 out of 5]

…It is always in solitude that reality has taken shape for me, under the star of desire. It is through solitude that I learned that the only thing that is truly real is what one desires in oneself for oneself…there was still this sense of expectation, a feeling of dissatisfaction, the abyss…

Please read the rest of my review here:
https://open.substack.com/pub/msarki/...

[Colleen Mertens · Rating 4 out of 5]

This memoir follows a concert pianist as she learns her art and grows to start a wolf conversation center. Grimaud leads an unconventional life on her own terms. The book fascinates as you read her journey. It allowed me to enjoy music and my favorite animals, oftening leading me to listen to Grimaud's performances of the songs she mentions as I read. An interesting story by an intriguing woman.

[Alyssa Lane · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don’t think I get it. The writing was decent enough and I enjoyed all the kind of random historical/mythical factoids mixed in. But I don’t think I understand the overall point she was trying to make and the ending left me really underwhelmed as to what this was even supposed to be about. It’d be cool to visit that wolf center she built though.

[Miguel Schneider · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do love Hélène Grimaud! I love how she interprets classical music. I love her passion for wolves and nature. It's a great book because she fantastically describes all this. Just a few parts are very tough..

[Sydney Love · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

I really enjoyed reading this book. But I found myself only truly connecting to the narrator at the very beginning and very end of the novel.

I love the connection between nature and art at the end though!

[Bert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ook het schrijven van een boek doet Grimaud intuïtief, waarbij ze haar obsessieve kanten niet verbloemt, maar waardoor we ook goed de magie van muziek proeven. De mythologie over wolven kon mij verder niet interesseren.

[Sabine N. · Rating 2 out of 5]

The autobiography of the rebel piano player, wolf protector Hélène Grimaud. I guess I fpund it difficult to find it interesting. All the stories about animals were too crude for me. Not my type of wildness or romantism…

[Jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Buitengewoon

[Nina · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25

[sweet orange books · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read: 2014-02-22

[Gianluca Valente · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bien que j'apprécie le style de Grimaud, le texte est trop animiste et semble un peu chamanique.

[alice ★*๑♡:.｡☆ · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5. un livre unique et très inspirant !!

[Renee Alberts · Rating 3 out of 5]

As you might expect from a world-renowned classical pianist who lives with wolves on the side, Hélène Grimaud’s life makes for a fascinating book. In her memoir, she recounts the experiences and music that inspired her on her unique journey. Most of the book focuses on her childhood as an overly energetic and defiant young woman who found an outlet and calling in playing piano. She details her passionate encounters with encouraging (and not-so- encouraging) instructors, mentors, and institutes, and she waxes eloquently about her mystical experiences discovering and playing the works of her favorite composers. Interspersed among the brief, loosely-linear chapters are segments describing folkloric and historical information about wolves. While Grimaud doesn’t discuss her personal experiences creating a wolf preservation center until the very end of the book, her account of her first relationship with a wolf and her zeal for the animal are moving and vivid. Grimaud’s unapologetic, zealous appetite for her rare and singular experiences comes through in her forceful, idiosyncratic prose.

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this memoir by a classical pianist and enfant terrible, Grimaud interleaves the story of her self-actualization via classical piano with lore about wild animals, especially wolves. It’s poetic and fiercely intelligent and displays a singular mind that can acquire new information rapidly, and the structure is interesting. Occasionally there are subtle parallels and metaphors between the two narratives, but the second seems to be present simply to show, rather than tell, her fascination with the wild world. The literary reader in me hoped for a more spectacular link, and it did seem to be building toward that, but in the end the story of her own singular, fierce existence is enough, as is the assertion that the path to enlightenment and happiness lies in accepting the part of oneself that is wolf, untamable and pure.

[Ria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hélène Grimaud's autobiography brings together many things which are dear to me - music, France and animals. Born in beautiful Aix-en-Provence and now living in the United States, she is a talented concert pianist who performs regularly worldwide. After discovering a particular affinity with wolves, she has created a reserve for this threatened species in upstate New York. Her story particularly resonates with me as I have an artistic daughter who, like the author, is not afraid of swimming against the stream and following her own heart. This book is well written, admirably translated by Ellen Hinsey, and has a treasured place on my bookshelf.

[Daphne]

This is a fascinating true story--although one gets the sense that what is "true" for the author might not always match exactly with fact. Helene Grimaud has a wonderfully descriptive way of writing (which has been translated effectively into English) and an enthusiastic narrative style that at times is almost grandiose. Her observations about the world as well as about life as a musician are definitely worth reading. At the same time, her personality comes across very strongly--a good thing, although after getting to know her on the page one senses that she would be difficult to be with in real life. This is a highly readable and entertaining book.

[Jim Puskas · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's hard to imagine two topics less likely to merge into a single story than the early life and career of a concert pianist and a developing relationship with wolves. But that's the true-life story of Helene Grimaud. Temperamental, driven, at times rebellious to the point of perversity but also sensitive, perceptive and extremely gifted, Grimaud would make an interesting study for anyone tuned in to classical music and the people who perform it. But add to that the sequence of events that began with a late-night walk in Florida and you have a truly unique tale.

[Lynn Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love most any book that is about animals or inter-species communication. This memoir tracks a girl's growth to womanhood as a creative outsider. She is a word-renowned musician, a prodigy, who discovers her passion when she meets her first wolf, and subsequently founds a safe haven for them - a place where children can be introduced to this wonderful, powerful species. While this is not a literary masterpiece I loved the story.

[Francine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the way she feels about music and nature, it was interesting to read her life doing what she could to be a good pianist. I hope she will succeed in doing what she loves most. Making music a world on its' own and helping people to forget their sorrows. She did it with being close to animals, we can also do that, maybe not wolves, but our beloved dogs. And she made music so enchanting, please do rent a recording in the library and listen to her, it makes all the difference.